


sometimes, mint chocolate is all you need (and a talk)

by ineffableteddy



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Bolin just wants to cheer his brother up, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Mako needs advice (and gets it), Post-Canon, they're so soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:35:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28136316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffableteddy/pseuds/ineffableteddy
Summary: “He’s coming back tomorrow, isn’t he? From Ba Sing Se, I mean.” Again, silence. “Yeah.”---------In which Mako wants to confess to Wu but also desperately needs to clean his mind
Relationships: Mako/Prince Wu (Avatar)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 90





	sometimes, mint chocolate is all you need (and a talk)

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something Wuko related for so long, these boys need more love :(( 
> 
> Also i'm sorry but i transferred my hate against mint chocolate into Mako bc i thought it would fit him oops- 
> 
> disclaimer: english is not my first language so please exuse my grammar/spelling mistakes

Mako

* * *

It was a quiet evening. Mako was lying stretched out on his sofa with a book in his hands, when he heard a knock on his door.   
Before he could react, the door opened, and his brother’s face appeared in the doorframe.   
  
“hey, can I come inside?” Bolin asked. The older one nodded. “I just wanted to check up on you, the chief said you left work earlier today. I also should give you the book back Opal borrowed from you.” He said and lied the book on the coffee table.   
“Thanks.” For a few seconds, it was quiet between them.   
“Why did you leave earlier anyways?” Bolin looked at his brother, who turned his head away.   
“I needed to buy something.” Bolin looked around the room. His gaze fell on the dining table. On the table lied a small bouquet of yellow and orange flowers and a small box with mint chocolate. He raised his eyebrows. Mako knew his brother just found out why he bought these things.   
“He’s coming back tomorrow, isn’t he? From Ba Sing Se, I mean.” Again, silence.   
  
“Yeah.” Mako absolutely hated mint flavoured chocolate and his brother knew that. He also knew who absolutely loved these sweets.   
When Bolin turned back to his brother, the look on his face was sympathetic. He dropped next to Mako on the couch.   
  
“Are things still weird between Wu and you?”   
Mako nodded. 

  
Mako could remember everything exactly. It was about three months ago, when Wu left to go to Ba Sing Se to initiate the abolishing of the ancient earth kingdom monarchy.   
  
Mako dropped him off at the train station and offered him to go with him to his platform.   
“You don’t have to do that Mako, and you know that.”, Wu said jokingly. The taller man just rolled with his eyes. “And what if someone tries to assassinate you on your way to the train?” He said in an attempt to joke.   
Wu snorted. “It’s a shame you’re not my bodyguard anymore”   
_It’s really a shame.  
_ “I’ll really miss your sarcastic comments.” He padded Mako’s shoulder.  
This was one of the moments Mako tried to hate, but he couldn’t. He secretly enjoyed it when the smaller man padded him on the shoulder or when their hands brushed together, but he didn’t want to admit it. Especially not in front of Wu.   
  
When they arrived at the platform, Mako dropped the suitcase he was carrying for Wu. “So, I think you can carry your stuff now without my help.”   
The still-king nodded.   
“Thank you. I don’t know what I would do without you, big guy.”   
“You would’ve to carry your stuff yourself, for a start.” Mako crossed his arms and looked at the other one, who started to giggle. A small smile crossed the firebenders lips.   
  
“Oh, my spirits, you can smile?” the other one asked amused. Mako tried to hide the slight blush on his cheeks from the sight of Wu’s sparkling green eyes.   
“Yes, I can smile. I’m not a machine. I have something called ‘emotions’” he made quotation marks when he said the last word.   
“I know, I just wanted to mess with you. I try to enjoy the time we have together before I go back to that stupid palace. Even if it’s just for three months.”   
  
Wu told him many times how much he hated the royal palace in Ba Sing Se.   
At first, he just rolled his eyes every time Wu told him this. As someone who grew up in the streets with nothing, it was hard to believe someone hated getting everything he wanted. But after a while, he understood what Wu had meant.  
For Wu, the palace was like a golden cage. Sure, he could have everything he asked for, but he couldn’t leave the upper ring of Ba Sing Se.   
  
Though books and stories Jinora told him he knew that Wu’s great-grandfather, who was earth king when Avatar Aang ended the 100-year-war, never even left the palace before the Avatar and his gang took him to lake laogai.   
And he knew that Wu also didn’t wanted to see the place where his great-aunt was murdered, and especially not sit on the throne where in front of she was killed.   
  
Before he could answer something to this, they heard the message announcing that the train to Ba Sing Se would leave in a few minutes.   
Wu took a deep breath, like he wanted to prepare himself for something. He took his suitcase and looked at Mako. “Goodbye, big guy.”   
And then, he leaned on his tiptoes and kissed Mako on the cheek.   
  
Mako’s mind went blank. But before he could realize what happened, Wu turned his back on him and entered the train.  
  
 _Wu kissed me on the cheek.  
  
_ Mako shook his head and tried to say something, but Wu was already gone, and the train slowly started to move. 

Wu’s first letter came a week later. Mako hoped he would mention the kiss, but he didn’t.   
Wu wrote about everything. How boring the meetings were, how desperate the royal advisors tried to change his mind about abolishing the monarchy and how much he missed to have Mako as a bodyguard.   
But he never mentioned the fact that Wu kissed him. Sure, it was a kiss on the cheek, but still. And so, Mako didn’t want to mention it, either.   
  
When he told his friends about this, Korra and Bolin tried to change his mind. They said he should write to him about this. Asami even volunteered to set up a radio connection so he could talk to him. But he didn’t want to talk or write about this. Mostly because he had no clue how he thought about it.   
  
Sure, he knew about his attraction to men, but he had never believed he would fall for _Wu._ Wu, who annoyed him since their first meeting. Wu, who was loud and couldn’t stop touching him. But somehow, he did. And after a few weeks of tossing and turning at night because he couldn’t stop thinking about _Wu kissing him on the cheek,_ he finally admitted it to himself.

When his brother laid his hand on his shoulder, Mako’s mind came back to the real world. He looked at Bolin, who still looked worried.   
“And you’re still picking him up from the train?” Bolin raised an eyebrow.  
Mako nodded again. “The chief wanted to send someone different but I volunteered to do it.”   
  
Again, his brother looked at the flowers and the chocolate.   
“You want to confess?”   
“Yeah. It’s the only thing I can do. I don’t want this barrier between us.”   
  
“I mean, you have good chances, after all he was the one who kissed you. Oh, I have an idea!” Bolin clapped his hands.   
“We’re going out tomorrow, regardless how it turns out. If he ditches you, we will comfort you over a bowl of noodles. And I’m promising I’m not going to kiss Opal, and I’m going to talk to Korra and Asami so they don’t kiss either, because I don’t want you to feel like the third wheel. Or fifth wheel in this case. And if Wu likes you, too, we can make a triple-date out of it!” He looked enthusiastically at Mako.   
The older one sighted and looked at his brother. “Fine, okay. Thank you, Bo.” Bolin smiled at his brother.   
“I’m sure you’re going to rock this.”

Mako didn’t feel like rocking this.   
When he was finally standing on the platform where the train was arriving, his hands were sweaty, and his heart hammered against his chest. He took a deep breath.   
_Okay, you got this.  
  
_ He sat on one of the benches on the platform and pulled a book out of the pocket of his jacket. Korra always mocked him because he got into the habit of always dragging a book with him, but reading calmed him down and now, he was very stressed.   
He placed the presents for Wu beside him on the bench and started reading.   
  
After he read a few pages, someone beside him said something.   
“Enjoying a good book, young man?”   
If he hadn’t lived on the streets for a few years, he would’ve been shocked. When Mako turned his head, he saw a middle-aged lady in a blue coat sitting next to him.   
“ehh, yes. I borrowed it from a friend.”   
  
In fact, it was one of Jinora’s favourite books and she told him so many times to read it that he hadn’t been able to say no, even though he had never been a fan of romance novels.   
“I read it, too. It’s a good book, but sometimes it’s a bit too overdramatic for my taste.” The woman said. 

Then her look shifted to the flowers and the box that lay between them.   
“Waiting for someone special?” The woman raised an eyebrow and looked a little amused at him.   
“Actually yes, the last time we saw each other it was very weird between us and I wanted to change that.” He looked at his feet, feeling how the heat slowly shifted in his face.   
“Oh, the girl can be happy to have a friend like you.” The lady said to him and smiled at him.  
Mako felt the heat in his face.   
_I’m probably as red in the face as dad’s scarf by now.  
_ “Actually, I’m not waiting for a girl.” He looked away.   
“Oh, I’m so sorry to assume the gender of your friend.” She said ashamed.   
“I should’ve known better. You should know, I’m in fact waiting for my wife, she was in Ba Sing Se to visit her family.” She told him. “If I’m allowed to know, why was your friend away?”

He didn’t want to tell a woman he just met ‘yeah actually my friend is the king of the earth kingdom and he was in Ba Sing Se to abolish an ancient monarchy’, so he just said, “for work.”   
The lady nodded. “And you want to tell him how you feel about him?”   
  
Mako thought a lot about it. He heard it many times from his friends. _Tell him how you feel about him._ But hearing it from someone who he had never met, was something different.   
It was like he was looking at the whole scene in an outside perspective, like he wasn’t involved. Like he wasn’t the fool that was going to confess his love to a king.   
  
For this woman he was just a young man in love with a friend. For her, he was just a boy on a bench in a train station reading a book with flowers and a box of mint chocolate beside him.   
  
He didn’t know why, but the thought of it calmed him down. And suddenly, he knew what he was going to say. To that lady, and to Wu.   
  
“Yeah, I’m going to tell him. I don’t know what he’s going to say, but I want him to know the truth.” The lady leaned over and squeezed his hand. She gave him an encouraging look. “Good look.”   
Mako smiled lightly at her. “Thank you.”   
And then they heard the announcement. “The train from Ba Sing Se is arriving in a few minutes!” 

“So, this is where our ways part.”, the woman said to Mako when they both stood up. She held out her hand, and he took it.   
“It was nice talking to you. Thank you.”   
  
When he turned away to go the other end of the platform because he knew the first-class compartments were on that end, the woman yelled something to him.   
She went to him and gave him the chocolates and the flowers. “You forgot these.”   
“Thank you. Again.”  
  
Somehow he felt lighter after talking to her. He felt freer.  
  


* * *

Wu

* * *

Wu always liked train rides, even after getting kidnapped and put in a dark box on a train, just to be saved by the Avatar and her friends.   
Something about traveling for hours and only seeing how the landscape changed calmed him down.  
  
He also loved being away from the palace. For the first eighteen years of his life, his world was the upper ring and maybe the university.   
Sure, he was under shock when the Dai Li escorted him out of the palace just minutes after his great aunt was assassinated, but the thought of escaping the palace and the walls of the city let him feel free.   
But when he found out he was going to be the next king, the feeling of freedom slowly vanished. It was an exiting thought of being king, ruling a kingdom on his own. Well, not completely on his own, he would have (like every good king) advisors and ministers, but still, he felt excited every time he thought about it. But there was also a small feeling inside of him.   
  
And after Mako asked him if he really wanted to be king, this feeling grew every day.   
The feeling that he, in fact, didn’t want to be king. He didn’t want to become like his great-aunt, who oppressed her citizens, or like his great-grandfather, who was a puppet of the Dai Li until the Avatar showed him the real world.   
  
He just wanted to be a regular boy. And Mako showed him this.   
_Mako.  
_ The thought of him let Wu’s heart jump against his chest.   
He always found the books about the royal girl falling in love with her bodyguard stupid, and ironically, the exact thing happened to him.   
On the one hand, he didn’t want anyone to know he was attracted to men. And especially not that he fell in love with a _peasant,_ like his great aunt always called normal citizens.   
  
On the other hand, he wanted to scream it from the top of his lungs. He wanted to let the world know he loved a fire nation boy from the streets of Republic City. And he wanted to tell Mako this, too. He wanted to lay in his arms and hold his warm hand and just _look_ at the most handsome man he’d ever seen.   
  
The kiss on the cheek at the train station was spontaneous. He didn’t think about it, it felt like his body was moving on his own and then, he kissed him. It was just a kiss on the cheek, but when he finally sat in the train, he internally freaked out.   
  
The next right thing was to confess, right? But Wu didn’t want to confess his love for Mako through a letter.   
He wanted to look in his amber eyes and tell him about his feelings.   
  


When he looked out of the window, he saw that the train was starting to slow down.   
And then he heard the announcement: “We are soon arriving in Republic City. We hope you had a good journey.”  
  
Again, he felt his heart jump. _It’s okay. Just breathe._ He took a deep breath. He looked up and saw that his escort already stood up and was waiting for him.   
  
They had agreed that he would have someone from the Dai Li as a guard the moment he went into the train to Ba Sing Se. After he would arrive in Republic City, he would be under police protection.   
And he knew exactly what, or _who_ Beifong meant when she told him this.  
  
Just the thought of Mako standing on the platform waiting for him, dressed in his police uniform made him blush. But on the other hand, thinking about seeing Mako again made his stomach do a backflip.   
_Oh, he will hate me. He had never been a big fan of affection and physical contact.  
_ Wu swallowed hard and stood up as well. When he looked outside of the window for the last time, he saw the train station of Republic City.

The guard gave him his suitcase. He bowed at him and then left him alone, standing in front of the door of the train, waiting for it to stop. The train stopped and again, Wu took a shaky breath.   
_Maybe he doesn’t remember the kiss. Or he isn’t even there. Maybe the chief meant someone different and I just don’t know them._  
  
He got off the train and looked around, searching for someone in a police uniform. Or for a certain firebender with the most gorgeous eyes he had ever seen.   
And then Wu saw him.   
Mako stood there, arms crossed, the usual grumpy expression on his face. And in his arms, he held…did he really held flowers? For a moment Wu thought about the possibility that the flowers were for him. That Mako was here because of him. But then Wu saw that Mako didn’t wear his police uniform. _It’s probably just a coincident he’s here the same time I arrive. He’s probably here for someone different._  
  


He saw Mako looking around. And then his eyes fell on Wu. Again, the firebender let his eyes wander around the place and then came over to him. Wu spotted another thing in his hand. A dark green box. _Mint chocolate. My favorites. He actually remembered this...?_  
  


“Welcome back, King Wu.” The taller one smiled slightly. Wu didn’t know how to respond to this. “Just joking. Hello, Wu.”  
Wu shook his head. “You should really improve your jokes.” Mako snorted.   
It was silent before Wu dared to say something. “And the flowers are for who…?”   
  
The taller man looked at the flowers and then at Wu. “Oh, yeah. Right. These are for you.” He held out the flowers and the box. Wu raised an eyebrow, but he took the gifts.   
“And you’re giving me this because…?”   
  
Mako took a deep breath. “I…we…when you left…and you kissed me…I know, it was just a kiss on the cheek, but…I couldn’t stop thinking about it…and you.”   
The taller man looked away, but Wu could still see that he was blushing.   
  
“And I came to the conclusion…that I like you…a lot. But like as in…you know, ‘I-want-to-be-your-boyfriend’-like?” Wu didn’t know what he should say. _What did just happen??_   
Mako confessed. Mako, who he thought hated him. Who needed three years just to like him as a friend. _Who had even remembered my favorite chocolate._  
  
Mako still had his head turned away. “I’m sorry if the kiss was just meant as a friendly gesture. I probably read to much into it. It’s okay if you don’t feel the sa-“   
  
Before he could finish the sentence, Wu dropped everything he was holding and kissed Mako.   
He wrapped his arms around the others neck. At first, he could feel that Mako was surprised, but soon he wrapped his arms around Wu’s waist and deepened the kiss.

  
Mako tasted like coffee and chocolate. Wu enjoyed that a lot.  
He let out a satisfied sigh. Hesitantly Mako pulled him closer. It was just the two of them, two men kissing in a railway station. He always knew Mako was warm, but this...wow. He felt Mako pressing his body against his own.   
He felt when Mako's right hand slowly let go of his waist and glided into his hair to keep his head steady.   
  
He wanted this moment to last forever, but even he and Mako should breathe after a while. The firebender pulled away first, cheeks slightly pink and eyes sparkling.   
“You taste like that damn mint chocolate.” he said a little out of breath.   
“But I’ll get used to it.” And then he smiled. A big smile.   
“And I think I’ll get never used to your gorgeous smile, big guy.” Wu returned the smile. Again, Mako blushed.   
Wu didn’t know this serious man could be _that_ flustered.   
  
He picked up the gifts the other man brought him and looked at him. “Got any plans for us?” Mako sighed relieved. “You can choose. We can go everywhere you want, king Wu.”   
He said the last words with a sarcastic undertone.   
“I see you really got better at joking while I was gone.” Wu said as he took Mako’s warm hand into his own and squeezed it.   
“Hey, I had time to improve so I can woo you right.”   
  
They laughed as they went outside, hands holding and feeling better than ever before.

**Author's Note:**

> I also have an idea for a little bonus chapter but i don't know if i'm really gonna writing this- 
> 
> Anyways i hope you enjoyed this story, have a nice day/night (or whatever time of the day it is for you) <3 
> 
> Also a fun fact bc i thought it was funny: in the german version of tlok Wu shares a voiceactor with Harry Potter. (I needed to tell this someone i'm sorry)


End file.
